Schacht Urges Nazis Ease Anti-semitism

February 20, 1935

Berlin (Feb. 19)

The recent statement by President Roosevelt in which he announced the death of a proposed barter pact between the United States and Germany may lead to a decrease in anti-Jewish propaganda in the Reich, it was learned here today.

Backed by a number of influential exporters and merchants affected by the foreign boycott of German goods, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, economic dictator of Germany, has faced Nazi party leaders with the question of whether it is not high time to discontinue the Jew-baiting propaganda in the German press. Dr. Schacht is of the opinion that this propaganda is more harmful to Germany’s economic interests than to the Jews in Germany.

Dr. Schacht’s proposal is now under discussion here at a series of conferences of Nazi leaders being held in Berlin. A number of Nazi leaders are supporting Dr. Schacht’s stand. They argue that the anti-Jewish paragraphs of the Nazi program have long been accomplished with the ousting of Jews from all State, municipal and public positions. Present regulations against the Jews have made Germany safe from Jewish influence, they assert.

Opposition to this viewpoint, however, is expected by other Nazi leaders who warn that if the anti-Semitic propaganda in the German press should decrease, the Jews would again eventually obtain the same influence in German life which they exercised before Hitler came to power. The German nation and especially the German youth must be fed anti-Jewish propaganda in order to keep the nation untainted by Jewish blood, these Nazi leaders insist.